


prometheus unbound

by reddy



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AI falls for human, Android AU, Artificial Intelligence, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Obsessive Behavior, Outer Space, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Stalking, Uncanny Valley, i'm not great at tags, inspired by Prometheus and Interstellar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-02 16:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddy/pseuds/reddy
Summary: She did not recognize his silicon-based constitution. She thought he was alive. She offered him coffee. (Android Kylo Ren)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you give it a try.

**

_Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,_

_And moments - aye divided by keen pangs_

_Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,_

_Scorn and despair,—these are mine empire_

**

(percy bysshe shelley - prometheus unbound)

 

 

She thinks about the loneliness of people in pairs, people who hold hands but who don’t really _want_ to be there. The bodies glide out of range, seeking new horizons. You always get bored of the good things.

Still, maybe it would be nice to be bored. She craves normality, she craves it with her whole being. She wants a yapping Labrador to skip across her mowed lawn, she wants a child to blow bubbles with. She feels ashamed that she wants these common things.

Rey squints at the neon lights. She inhales the exhaust fumes and watches the couples walking down the street. The last night in town, the last night on Earth.

Tomorrow, she takes to the stars.

 

 

She wakes from cryogenic sleep with a strange tooth ache. Half of her face is swollen. She’s dehydrated and pumped with artificial chemicals. She can’t move her body for the first five minutes, and it’s not like being paralyzed, it’s like being nothing, it’s like your body has left you for another dimension.

But at least she is among the stars.

A crew nurse helps her out of her pod and slips an electric blanket over her exposed body. She feels watched.

Rey looks over her shoulder and sees the other crew members wobbling out of their pods, like fetus who never wanted to be born.

It’s been 370 days since they left Earth.

 

 

She cries the first night that she lies down in her bunk. The tears are perfunctory. They used to tell her at the training base that you become a crybaby once you realize how much time has passed. 

But she’s an engineer, and they don’t have feelings, it’s a proven fact. Besides, she wanted to come on this mission. Who could deny themselves the opportunity? Some of her colleagues dubbed it as pure suicide, seeing as they are going further than any spaceship has gone before. But if they don’t take this step now, staying on Earth will soon be suicide.

She sits up in bed and thinks about Luke. She left him on Earth, her only known family. She left him because she wants to save him, to give him a better chance. His crops are dying. The world around him is dying too, caving into quicksand. The only difference she can make is here.

She hears a rattle somewhere in the bowels of the ship. The screen above her head broadcasts that there is some turbulence ahead.

Rey clicks on the virtual map which tracks the movements of her crew mates. Most of them are resting after the shock of waking up. The captains are in the control room. There’s no one in the cafeteria.

Rey slips into her uniform and leaves the warmth of her cabin. She craves strong, bitter coffee.

 

 

Her steps are spirals of air. The outer corridors do not have artificial gravity so she floats like a siren, calling to no sailor. Rey turns on her back, staring at the white ceiling. She does a backstroke through this invisible, saltless sea. She remembers a day at the beach, so long ago. Now, people can't go into the ocean anymore, not without proper protective gear. 

The turbulence throws her off balance, and she collides into one of the walls. Harder than she anticipated. Her forehead throbs, but she’s used to bumps and scrapes.  She curls her fingers outwards and swims towards her destination.

 

 

There is gravity in the cafeteria. She walks to the breakfast stand and pulls out small packets from compact drawers. The setting reminds her of an abandoned hospital ward. Windows in the shape of honeycombs surround the room, giving her a glimpse of the ether outside.

She waits for the water to warm up.

“You must be Rey.”

The voice sounds pre-recorded, almost unspoken. Like silk from another century.

She clutches the counter in fear. _Get a hold of yourself._

When she turns, she has to pause and crane her neck. He is a tall vision in black. A mountain without a sky.

Whoever he is, he looks impeccable. He’s dressed in a System Technician uniform, but he does not look exhausted and bleary-eyed. Cryogenic sleep did not leave a mark on him. His face is wide and alert, his eyes dark and penetrating. There is no hidden agenda in them, nothing to retain a personality. The only startling features are his large ears and violent mouth, both drawn at random by a cruel god.

“Yes, assistant to the Third Engineer,” she replies warily, standing with her back to the boiling water. “And you are?”

“Kylo Ren,” he offers, bowing his head slightly, hands behind his back. “May I be of assistance?”

Rey frowns, uncertain of his meaning. “I’m just getting coffee, I think I’ll survive. What’s your position, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all. I am an Information Technician.”

She guessed as much. “Do you work under Executive Officer Hux?”

Kylo seems to pause briefly before answering, though his face betrays no hesitation. “Yes. I fall under his jurisdiction, though others may take advantage of my abilities.”

Rey is too tired for this sort of decorum. She wonders if he spoke like that on Earth. She wants to ask him what miracle pills he took to look so put together.

“Do you want some coffee?” she asks, as not to be impolite.

And she notes the small bow in his lips, the foreshadowing of a smile. But he doesn’t really. He stops short of smiling. It’s odd.

“I don’t drink coffee, but thank you.”

Rey chuckles to herself. “You’re made of tougher stuff than me."

“Isn’t it counter-intuitive to drink coffee during sleep time?” he asks with genuine curiosity. There is something hollow about his eyes, like an apple without a core.

“Do I look like I’m very intuitive?” she jokes, pouring herself a large mug.

Kylo seems rather flummoxed by her question. His eyebrows knit together for a moment. He finally settles the matter. “Yes.”

Rey laughs, shaking her head. “Good one.”

They stand in front of each other awkwardly as she sips at her coffee.

“Do you want to sit down?” she gestures to the small tables strewn about the room.

He stares between her and the tables for a moment. Then his shoulders stiffen. “I’m afraid I have to get back to work.”

“Oh…okay. I guess I’ll see you around.”

“You will,” he says simply and gives her an artificial smile. His first. She wonders why it looks so…manufactured. Perhaps because his eyes still have empty chambers behind them.

Rey swallows her bitter coffee and watches the strange man leave.

She coughs and calls after him. “Hey – how did you know who I was?”

He turns his head slightly, but not all the way. She can’t read his expression. “I know who everyone is. It’s my job. Goodbye, Rey.”

“Goodbye,” she answers back, wishing she could ask more.

 

 

He should delete the copy of her file from his memory. There is nothing wrong with backing up data – on the contrary, he is expected to anticipate failure. He was made for this purpose.

But there is nothing informationally valuable about her dreams in cryogenic sleep. They used to hold some significance while she was unconscious because he was supposed to monitor her mental and physical welfare. Dreams are a good signifier for normalcy or trauma. He had to look at everyone’s dreams.

It’s just that he only copied hers.

It’s not that her dreams had the most narrative complexity. In fact, most of her reveries were anticlimactic and absurd. But their tonality – and this he cannot _quite_ explain yet, since he has not been programmed to achieve hyper levels of subtlety – their tonality is different. Like walking down a flight of stairs and missing one step when you’re in a rush. That moment of free-fall that does not really matter, unless you sprain your ankle. It is a moment between moments, the bridge between two alternate realities. Those are her dreams. See? He cannot quite explain.

She dreams of Earth as a locket, held aloft by a pair of gnarly fingers. She dreams of her uncle Luke eating corned beef at the dinner table, blood dripping from his mouth. She dreams of a park where she left her limbs. Her hands are in the trees. Her feet are on the seesaw. The rest of her is being fed to the ducks on the pond. He can’t look away from these dreams.

Intellectual curiosity made him connect to the nurse’s comlink as she helped Rey out of her pod. He wanted to witness her return to consciousness, but he looked away briefly to avoid her naked form. He is a gentleman, and this is the image he wishes to cultivate.

Later, he saw her on the map, heading for the cafeteria. The only member of the auxiliary crew to leave her cabin during recovery time.

He simply wanted to introduce himself, since he would be interacting with every member soon enough.

But he did not expect her not to know. He thought _everyone_ knew.

Yet, in the first few moments, she looked at him as if he was human. And she kept doing that for the rest of the nine minutes they spent together.

She did not recognize his silicon-based constitution. She thought he was alive. She offered him coffee.

It made him feel – no, _not_ feel. He doesn’t feel, although he has been adjusted so delicately that sometimes he can imitate emotion successfully.

It was simply a new experience for him, to be treated as a mortal man. He’d like to repeat it. Perhaps… it will take some time for her to find out.

But that would mean dishonesty, deceit, falsehood, chaos, and eventually, disorder. These are all very bad things, he knows. 

He does not delete her file from his private data, but he removes the dreams. He possesses a reliable humanoid memory, separate from his android capacity. 

He wonders if he will remember her dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for showing interest and taking a chance on this story. i hope you like this chapter!

The steam rolls out of the bathroom in white clouds. He can make out a distinct shape coming towards him. Executive Officer Hux emerges at his side with a towel wrapped around his hips. He pats the android’s cheek with condescension. Kylo’s skin registers the spike in temperature. The Officer’s body is warm from the shower.

“Give me the statistics on life sustenance and trajectory, so far.”

Kylo complies, exposing the data for him in a comprehensive manner. He makes sure to speak in a slow cadence, employing the iambic pentameter he knows is soothing and easy to remember for humans. The last time he was asked to report information to Hux, he spoke quickly and matter-of-fact and it earned him a small punishment.

“Anomalies in Maintenance, Security or Flight?” Hux asks, stripping off his towel and grabbing a fresh pair of clothes.

Kylo stares at the ventilation grid in the ceiling.

“Look at _me_ while you report, Ren.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He proceeds to answer every question without hesitation, though he would rather still stare at the ventilation grid. He watches his superior zip up his uniform.

“Anomalies in Medical or Engineering?” Hux continues, dusting the gleaming insignia on his shirt.  

Kylo enumerates the various small errors he detected in the functioning of ship protocols. There is nothing here that cannot be remedied. Except in Engineering, he thinks, where a crew member has not identified him as an AI.

But that is not an error he can or should report. It is only – something.

Hux straightens his tie. He stares at the floor in something like disgust.

“Pick up that towel, will you?” he instructs the android as he exits his cabin.

 

 

If you put aside abstractions and focus on the work, this place can sometimes feel like Earth. Rey starts each morning as she did at home. She turns on the radio and switches to the ship’s Vintage Station. She listens to Buddy Holly and The Andrews Sisters as she pulls her hair into a bun, drinks her Styrofoam cup of coffee and takes her vitamins. She doesn’t usually eat breakfast. She knows it’s a bad habit, but she can’t stomach anything this early in the morning. She takes an elevator to the quarterdeck and makes her way to the Engineers’ Station. Artificial gravity is not activated on every corridor for power conservation, but she enjoys floating. She enjoys not having any weight for a few precious moments. It reminds her she doesn’t matter, not really.

She reports to Third Engineer, Maz Kanata, in charge of Power Generation, Storage and Distribution. She is a kind, but demanding superior who’s got a rather sardonic sense of humor. She keeps alluding to the fact that she will likely die on this ship. Kanata is pushing sixty. Rey always denies the possibility, but Maz just smiles and gives her the assignments for the day. There is a rhythm, a form of stability in the routine. You can almost ignore the period before – the period of cryogenic sleep. Now that everyone has woken up, hierarchies are asserted, a small society re-instated. They used to be unconscious bodies, equal in their helplessness. Now they are compartmentalized.

She meets Finn and Poe for lunch. Finn works in Maintenance and he’s very proud that he has been recently promoted to Environmental Supervisor. He says that the increase in salary will mean a transfer into his bank account on Earth. Rey envies his ability to think of a future in such commonplace terms. Poe is a pilot in the Flight Department and he is far more cynical about his place on the ship. He doesn’t yet get to do very much, except scout the perimeter and aid with external repairs. He feels like he’s been put on a leash. He’s looking forward to the exploratory part of the mission.

Rey is secretly dreading it. She has to believe that they will _find_ something out there, but she would rather float in limbo for a while. Uncle Luke called her _brave_ for doing this, but the word holds so many valences in her head.  She thinks she’s just a coward in search of meaning.  She thinks she wanted to escape a dying Earth. She thinks, _real bravery is staying through the worst of it._

But she eats the protein-rich food and smiles and listens to her friends talk about their plans and their frustrations.

It’s going well until Poe hits Finn in the arm. “Hey, check it out, it’s the android. The one from SNOKE.”

They both stretch their necks to stare at the tall man who is passing by in the opposite corridor. Rey follows their line of sight and…puts her fork down. She grabs her small cup of water.

No. That’s not – that’s just the awkward Information Technician she met over coffee that night. They talked for a while, and he left. He was just a little stiff.

She’s about to say as much when Poe continues in a conspiratorial manner. “I heard he wasn’t supposed to be launched yet, but the higher-ups insisted he was ready for real-life situations.”

“He’s just a prototype, though, isn’t he?” Finn asks, staring at Kylo Ren’s back. “They’ll pull him back if he’s defective.”

Rey feels lightheaded. She knows about SNOKE, the big technological conglomerate who is sponsoring their mission. She knows they do innovative work with AIs, but she did not know they came out with an anthropomorphic model. How did she not know?

“We should call him over and see what he’s like,” Poe suggests with a small grin. “Test him out.”  

“We could definitely pick his brains,” Finn agrees.

“ _No_.”

Her refusal comes out a little too forceful. Finn and Poe stare at her, nonplussed.

“I mean…we shouldn’t disturb him. He’s probably busy,” she mutters, gripping her cup of water.

Poe frowns. “He’s a service android, he doesn’t mind.”

“What is it, Rey, are you _afraid_ of robots?” Finn teases with a wink.

Rey can’t tell them that she’s already met him.  She feels _so_ stupid right now. She thought Kylo Ren was human. She made a fool of herself. She’s supposed to be smarter than that.

It’s too late now. Poe’s already running up to him, trying to catch his attention. He succeeds. Rey watches in horror as the android stops and turns to look towards their table. She ducks her head in embarrassment. She’d like for the universe to swallow her up right now.  

Kylo straightens up and places his arms behind him. He does not look happy or sad to be following Poe back to their table. His coarse features are held together in neutral balance.

“I told my friends you wouldn’t mind chatting with us, do you?” Poe asks as he waves him into a seat. “Guys, meet the amazing Kylo Pen.”

“It’s Ren, actually. Kylo Ren,” the android corrects with perfect equanimity.

“Oh, sorry, buddy. No hard feelings, eh?”

Kylo Ren shakes his head. “Feelings are rarely qualified as hard.”

Finn erupts into laughter. “You’re already way more entertaining than our comlinks. What can you do, Kylo?”

The android’s gaze sweeps over them for a moment, registering and cataloging. Rey doesn’t have to look in a mirror to know her cheeks are bright red. She tries her best to seem friendly and relaxed as she plasters a smile on her face. No doubt he’s recognized her. What must he think of her?

“I am an Information Technician and a Data Collector. I can assess errors, calculate estimated time for correction, survey and control the functionality of information systems –”

“Sure,” Poe interrupts him, “but you’re also a super-computer, right?”

Kylo nods stiffly. “I am equipped with a database that is updated daily via satellites.”

“That’s so cool. You basically know everything,” Finn concludes.

“No, not everything,” Kylo shakes his head.

“He’s modest too,” Poe observes, patting him on the back. The gesture doesn’t seem to bother the android, but his eyes lift upwards slightly, as if in search of a fixed point on the ceiling.

Rey clears her throat. “I’m sure we’re keeping… _Mr. Ren_ from pressing business.”

The android’s eyes land on her, swift as a pendulum. They communicate no intrinsic emotion, but his gaze still feels real. She squirms in her seat.

“Oh come on, everyone’s on lunch break. Business can wait. So Kylo,” Poe continues unfazed, “do you know anything about human culture?”

“Please narrow it down for me. Which aspect of human culture are you interested in?” Kylo replies, his eyes still scanning Rey.

 “Hmm. What about movies? Do you know movies?” Finn suggests.

“Oh yeah, that’s a good one,” Poe agrees.

“If you will name the cinematic oeuvre, I may be of assistance,” the android responds calmly.

Poe claps his hands in excitement. “Can you quote movie lines?”

 “If you will name the cinematic oeuvre, I may be of assistance,” Kylo repeats patiently.

“I got one!” Finn exclaims. “How about Marlon Brando in _A Streetcar Named Desire_?”

The android nods perfunctorily and lowers his chin. His eyes flash blue and then turn vacant. He opens his mouth and from it issues a strange, garbled recording. It’s not his voice.

“ _Stella! Stella!_ ” Marlon Brando screams through his lips.

Rey startles, gripping the edge of the table. It’s – unsettling. The android looks like he's only a vessel for the actor’s voice. As if he’s being possessed.  

Finn and Poe clap in appreciation. “That’s really good!”  They egg him on. “Do another one, do another one!”

“ _What do you think you are? A pair of queens?”_ Kylo continues in Brando’s angry voice. _“Now just remember what Huey Long said - that every man's a king - and I'm the King around here, and don't you forget it_.”

“ _Stop_ it,” Rey blurts out, standing up.

The recording glitches and goes dead. Kylo’s eyes return from the abyss and he closes his mouth. He stares up at her blankly.

Rey swallows, feeling foolish. “We should get back to work. Break’s almost over. We apologize for taking up your time, Mr. Ren.”

She drags her friends away, ignoring their protests.

 

 

Poe places his hand on Rey’s arm. “Hey, we were just having some fun back there. He enjoys that stuff too. It beats doing protocol work.”

 “How do you know he enjoys it?” she demands, circumventing his touch. “He doesn’t have a choice.”

“Of course he does, they program him with all sorts of options. I bet he can refuse us if it’s something bad.”

“You made him act like a monkey in a zoo,” Rey mumbles, flushing an angry red.

“It was harmless!”

“No, it was degrading,” she retorted.

“What’s gotten into you?” Finn asks, trying to catch her eye. “You’re not usually so sensitive.”

They arrive at the quarterdeck where they are supposed to say goodbye and return to their stations. Rey is chilly in her departure. They can’t imagine that their conversation is being overheard and analyzed.

 He can tap into any comlink and surveillance units. In fact, it is his prerogative to do so. He can ensure maximum functionality if he keeps track of crew activity. It's useful to identify problems in the crew’s attitude too.

Right now, Rey is not collaborating successfully with her colleagues because she is angry. She is angry on _his_ behalf. He dwells on her words. _Like a monkey in a zoo._ He calls up similar footage in his database. He surveys clips of screaming monkeys, clutching the bars of their cages, rattling them and trying to climb them.  He calls up the semantic field of the word “degrading”. He lingers there for a while, wading through images of submission, humiliation and disgrace.

In the end, he draws up a report and concludes that Rey’s anger is not a problem. It will not affect her work. It does not affect him, either. It actually helps him understand humans better. She is probably still adjusting to his new status in her mind. _No longer human._ She has not made the full transfer, because she still defended him like you would defend a human. It is…interesting.

He taps into the surveillance unit on the Engineer Station. He finds her work space. She is talking to Maz Kanata. Her forehead is slightly beaded with perspiration from walking too fast. Her physical secretion is less disturbing to him than Executive Officer Hux's bodily functions. 

He notes there is a small yellow mark on the side of her temple from a previous injury. He wonders how she got it. 

He does not tune in to hear what she is saying. He has observed her enough for one day. He might return to her in the evening. To make sure her anger has subsided ( ~~or rather, to make sure her anger is still there. No. _No_.~~ )

He moves on to other crew members. He can study all of them at the same time, if he so chooses.

 _“Now just remember what Huey Long said,”_ Kylo recites in his own voice, _“that every man's a king - and I'm the King around here, and don't you forget it_.”

 

 

Rey is on the brink of falling asleep. She thumbs through the digital outlet on her pad. There’s nothing good to read, except for dispiriting news from Earth. A small announcement comes up on screen about a once-in-a-lifetime offer on synthetic enamel. She laughs to herself. _Once in a lifetime._ This lifetime is just about gone.

She taps a name into the search bar. _Kylo Ren._

The AI’s basic model information pops up on screen, including details on his maker, his skills and capabilities, his limitations, the level of his singularity.

 _See, it was right there for you to look up_ , she thinks with a sigh.

And then she spots something at the bottom of the page. A small line, written in fresh digital ink.

_You do not have to call me Mr. Ren._

Rey sits up in bed. The blood rushes to her ears. Her pulse spikes and her breath thins, until inhaling air becomes a difficulty. _Mr. Ren._ The writer is addressing her in second-person and referring to himself at the same time. It can only mean one thing.

She refreshes the page, but the same message waits for her at the bottom.

She disconnects her pad and changes her IP, but when she logs back in, the words are still there.

Rey worries her lower lip, wondering if she should report this as an error. It seems quite deliberate, however. No, she’s certain. It is very much _intended_ to her.

He is connected to this page and he must see she is here too.

She picks up the digital pen. She hesitates for a few moments, but eventually writes under his message: _All right, Kylo._

When she refreshes his page, both messages have disappeared.

Rey lays her head on the pillow.

She hopes she’ll have a dreamless sleep. Her mind suddenly feels crowded.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your kudos and comments! hope you like the chapter!

“Ah!” she hisses as the pain scalds her, a dry wave in the desert of space. She drops the generator cap and crumbles to her knees.

One of the officers rushes towards her, followed by Maz Kanata.

“It’s – it’s all right,” she has enough breath to say as she clutches her arm to her chest. She is trying to make a tourniquet out of her shirt. Blood sprays the floor like a fine mist.

Maz whistles through her lips. “Get her to the medical pod immediately!”

Rey feels clumsy and foolish and a little lightheaded. Blood, she finds, smells like orange blossoms.

 

 

Scrapes and scars are not foreign to her. Uncle Luke always told her she was reckless with her flesh, never careful enough about her limitations. She was the shortest in her class until ninth grade. Then there was a startling grow spurt and though it made her taller, she remained wiry and unfinished. A woman stuck in a child’s coltish body.

So she flung that body in whichever direction she could, hoping it would stretch and widen and take up more space.

Until she flung it into actual _space_.

She feels this way now as she’s carried on the stretcher. Flung.

 

 

The trouble is that the mechanic who screwed the generator cap shut during the previous session accidentally folded one of the self-sterilizing blades in an opposite rotation. The blade, when she opened the cap, flew straight at her arm, slashing mercilessly, not caring about the garland of veins.

She insists, as she’s placed on the observation table that it wasn’t the mechanic’s fault, that such things occur because machines, for all their critical efficiency, are filled with hazardous potential. Just like humans.

The wound is deep, but it is manageable. It is cleaned and stitched and bandaged, but her arm dexterity is compromised for the next few days. She is given painkillers, but she shouldn’t take them, she thinks. She used to be addicted to a particular brand, back on Earth.

So she puts the pills in her pocket and tries to acclimate to the pain.

 

 

He’s got a bird’s-eye view of the medical unit. He slips through each ward like a ghost without a past life. Each camera provides him with a glimpse of some problem, some human malfunction. And he finds her easily because her digital mark is familiar to him. It is no exception, he has memorized the features of many by now.

She is lying on the observation table, her body seemingly intact, except for her right arm. Which is not intact. It has been slit through, as if someone opened it to deposit something inside but forgot to close it back up. He zooms in and stares at the violent wound, the upraised flesh, the crater made inside her skin, the black edges, the pulsing red muscle within. He has rarely seen damage this close. He is drawn to the unseen, to what may lie beyond this wound. He would like to peel back the rest of her skin. But he knows this would not be good for her.

He watches her face as they stitch up the wound. She crinkles her nose in this particular way, her eyes closing and opening, her breath halting at times when, despite the local anesthesia, she can feel a tingling.

She has lost enough blood to make her lightheaded for the next few hours.

They make her eat some fortifying porridge and they offer painkillers, but he catches the moment when she slips them in her pocket.

Is she saving them for later, he wonders?

What would it be like to take a painkiller? No, he thinks. That is not the logical order. First you must feel pain.

 

 

He finds out what was responsible for her injury when he enters the Power Generation, Storage and Distribution database and checks the lab log for the day. A problem with the generator cap and a defective blade. The blade has not been replaced, because it was only defective due to human error.

Human error, then.

The name of the mechanic who worked on it the previous day is also in the log. He stores the information for later.

 

 

Rey sees him standing in the corridor. He could be a statue, but even statues are not that still. He has a vacant look in his eye, as if he were on stand-by. She wonders if his makers programmed him to leave his body as he travels through virtual data. If so, how does he feel upon return? He is so large and dense and almost unyielding. It must be strange to find yourself in such a body. How much of him _is_ his body?

She smiles and says hello, waving her good arm.

“Hello, Kylo.”

His eyes snap back to her, returning from whatever realm he was exploring. “Hello.”

“Are you also waiting for the elevator?” she asks, stopping in front of the sliding doors.

He is not. But saying he is waiting for the elevator is far more sensible than saying he is waiting in the corridor. He knew she would walk here.  He wanted to see her in person, to see the bandage.

“Yes,” he says evenly. “Shall we rise together?”

Rey crinkles her nose, the way she did when she was being stitched. “That’s – a lovely, strange way of putting it.”

“Is it?” he asks with genuine curiosity.

She nods and presses the button for the elevator to come down. “It can have a double meaning, I guess.”

“Ah,” he exhales, the way humans do, a breathy sigh of understanding. He has learned how to do it exactly. He proceeds to identify the meanings. “First meaning: the physical motion upwards. Second meaning: more abstract, spiritual, an elevation without motion.”

She folds her good arm over her injured one. The bandage is hidden by her jacket. “You speak like a poet.”

He has no exact input for that, so he just stares at her. It could be an insult. Humans take words and throw them like pebbles, like children.

“It’s a good thing,” she clarifies quickly, noticing his stare. “A nice thing.” She pauses. “I, er, actually wanted to apologize to you.  My friends, they didn’t mean –”

The elevator doors open with a whoosh. He raises his arm to usher her inside: human females must go before male droids, of course. 

Rey thanks him and steps in. He stands next to her in the enclosed space, but not _too_ close. He has learned the value of personal space since working with Executive Officer Hux.

She turns to him again. “You know, when they made you quote movies and –”

He nods. “It was fine. I did not mind.”

“But – but I would mind,” she mumbles, looking down. “You’re not here for our entertainment.”

 “Actually,” he says slowly, as if sifting through an official document, “entertainment may be one of my purposes in times of stress and decline.”

Rey bites her lip. He observes the gesture with mild aversion. But then he relaxes. She is _not_ exposing her teeth as a kind of threat. She is biting her mouth because she is nervous. Odd, the contrast between very soft lips and sharp teeth. Does it release some tension? He runs his teeth over his lips.

“Maybe,” she responds, “but not like that.”

He’d like to ask _what entertainment is proper?_ But he doesn’t get the chance.

“They’re good guys,” she adds. “They just like to fool around. It’s hard sometimes, being so far away from home.”

“Then these _are_ times of stress and decline,” he concludes, staring at her injured arm.

Rey notices the direction of his gaze. She tugs at her sleeve. “Oh, um, you heard about that, did you?”

“Yes. There was information in the log.” There’s no reason not to disclose this.

Rey watches the floors speed past them, the lights shifting like the eyes of insects, on and off, horizontal and vertical.

“It was just an unfortunate accident,” she says, pressing her hand over her wrist.

“May I see it?”

The question startles her. He can tell because one shoulder rises slightly. She turns towards him. “See it?”

“Your arm,” he clarifies, extending his own, as if to instruct her.

She stares at his gloved fingers for a few moments.

“Then I may not see it.  That is fine,” he deduces, nodding his head, undisturbed.

“No, no. You can, if you want to. It’s just a strange – Never mind.” She loosens out of her jacket clumsily with one arm.

“Here. Let me assist,” and he takes the garment from her. He is used to handling garments.

“Thanks.”

The T-shirt luckily does not cover the bandage. He takes a step closer. She raises her arm for him, though her face is still slightly in the dark. She doesn’t know why he wants this.

Kylo presses the tips of his fingers against the length of her arm. He stares at the white bandage, unwrapping it with his eyes, looking beneath.

Rey doesn’t know what to do, what to say. She has a curiosity. “Do you – can you get hurt? Like this, I mean.”

Kylo is still staring at the bandage. “No, not like this.”

The elevator doors whoosh open. People are coming down the corridor. She quickly retracts her arm, as if she has been caught doing something shameful.

Kylo hands her back her jacket, his face a perfect mask. No, not a mask. That _is_ his face.

She smiles weakly. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“For now,” he states formally, crossing his arms behind his back.

Rey nods. “For now.”

And she slips away through the elevator doors.

 

 

He goes through her archives and opens the folders she has saved from her personal computer at home. He finds “poet” and “poetry.”

_You speak like a poet._

He wants to see how her poets speak. He sifts through the documents with leisurely speed.

“ _Love is not love_ , / _Which alters when it alteration finds, /Or bends with the remover to remove.”_ This is common sense – almost a needless repetition, a truism. L is not L, if L is altered. L is not L, if the conditions for L are removed.

So far, he understands.  

 _“…The moan of doves in immemorial elms, /And murmurings of innumerable bees_.”

Description of vegetation, living things. Repetition– of sounds this time. “mo – do”, “in – im”, “me –elm”, “mur–num”, “mo-mur”…One could form different variations, like scales and logarithms, they clinch together. Clusters and particles. Language with purpose.

The only problem is “moan”. He can put up with “murmurings” for a few seconds before the idea dissolves. But “moan” gives him trouble. Can the elms moan? He taps into an audio recording of windmills. He listens to tropical gales. He closes his eyes and forces himself to decipher a voice in the maelstrom, calling to him.

He stops when it proves fruitless and a little strange.

“ _I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, /And Mourners to and fro, /Kept treading –treading – till it seemed, /That Sense was breaking through –”_

This gives him more trouble.  It is a kind of transference. Not only double meanings, but meanings which usually do not go together. Funeral in the brain…he searches the images for proper burial rites in the timeline when Emily Dickinson wrote the poem. He sees caskets with lace and women with veils. If you put a veil over your head, is that the funeral? He sees a hearse drawn by a horse in the middle of a narrow street and mourners walking behind it…treading, treading…they do not keep quiet, their feet marching, trampling, profaning– to and fro. He imagines them walking over the woman’s veil while her head is underneath it. They would crush her skull.

He moves on.

“ _Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so_ , _nor could/ a smile run through the placid hips and thighs/ to that dark center where procreation flared…”_

He recognizes sexual content – the dark center of procreation. But where is the smile, running through hips and thighs? Does a human’s body bend like that? Does the curved breast match the hips and thighs?

He reads further down the line.

 _“….for here there is no place/ that does not see you_.”

Here, meaning 'on the body'. The hips see you, and you see them. The body is revealed. Nothing is hidden. He stares down at himself, his full dress, his gloved fingers.

He removes his gloves. His fingers are now bare.

_For here there is no place that does not see you._

His body can become the place. His body can see everything.

He understands.

 

 

The mechanic’s name is Bala-Tik. He hails from Scotland. His mother died when he was fourteen in a car accident. He once served community service for petty theft. He worked on the cap and accidentally set the blades in opposite rotation. Maz Kanata talked to him. He seemed distraught. But no disciplinary action was taken.

Kylo Ren slips into his comlink. He is inside his room.

 

 

Maz is in a foul mood this morning. Her scowl is beleaguered.

“First you bleed on my floor,” she points to Rey, “and now that one gets his hand stuck under his bunk transmitter like a cretin. It’s bad luck all around.”

“Who?” Rey asks, nonplussed.

“Bala-Tik, the mechanic.”

It must be bad luck, like Maz said. Though it’s also ironic. As if hate had a dark sense of humor.

Rey sits down in her chair. She runs her fingers over her bandages. She looks up at the cameras set over her work station. They betray nothing.

She heaves a sigh, deep from her chest, because these things happen. Machines are hazardous, like humans.

 

 

 _For here there is no place that does not see you,_ the cameras - his body - whisper.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a slightly shorter chapter due to the self-contained atmosphere (you'll see what i mean). next chapter will have a sliiight shift in dynamics as we enter creepier territory. thank you so much for your kudos and comments!

He has an inbuilt Clean&Update system which ensures that any small glitches or aberrant behaviors are erased and rewired inside his main drive.

He has been programmed to identify his own glitches, though sometimes he may employ selective evaluation.  Not every glitch is a glitch – sometimes, changes in his routines indicate a better understanding of humans’ needs. Sometimes a glitch is an improvement.

When the time comes for his weekly Clean&Update, Kylo Ren has the choice to consider his action against Bala-Tik as a glitch. He has the option of cataloging this behavior as aberrant.

He employs selective evaluation.

Subjecting Bala-Tik to disciplinary action was not an error. Humans tend to repeat their mistakes when they are not made aware of the consequences. Bala-Tik would have been reckless a second time and then Rey would have been injured to a higher degree. An engineer would have been wasted. The ship cannot afford waste. Bala-Tik was punished and now he will be more careful.

Kylo Ren does not submit his actions against Bala-Tik as a glitch. It is an improvement.

 

 

Rey hooks her datapad to the charger and waits for the screen to turn blue. The SNOKE logo is a hexagon with a circle inside. The circle looks like a frayed sun, like someone took a pair of scissors to a child’s drawing.

When the pad is fully charged, the circle will turn a limpid gold.

The hexagon swings back and forth aimlessly on the blue screen. The effect is slightly hypnotic.

Rey yawns. She closes her eyes only for a moment. When she opens them, the sun is being filled with creamy gold.

And underneath it, there is one black row, like ants crawling in search for food.

Rey frowns, running her fingers over the words.

_Nothing gold can stay._

There’s a click of recognition inside her, like a feather touch on her hipbone. The words disappear once the sun is full. The datapad pings a “welcome back, Rey” to her.

But she presses her thumb against her lips and thinks. Until it comes to her.

_Robert Frost._

What was a Robert Frost verse doing on the charging screen? Is it a new strategy from SNOKE? To appear more…approachable, more human?

She’ll have to wait until the pad needs charging again to verify whether this is a common occurrence.  

But there is a little nub of suspicion in her throat, ticklish like a feather’s touch.

She accesses Kylo Ren’s model information page again.

She scrolls to the bottom with uneven breathing, but there’s no message waiting for her there. She picks up the digital pen and…hesitates for a few moments. Maybe this is pointless, but she’d like to know.

  _Kylo?_

The seconds that pass feel heavy on her shoulders. She already regrets this rash action, because it makes her seem  _nosy_.  Like she can’t mind her own business.

 _Yes_ , he replies in little to no time.

_Hello. Do you mind answering a question?_

_Not at all,_ is his immediate response.

_Do you know who is in charge of editing the charging screen on our datapads?_

_The SNOKE software center on Earth. But for the duration of our travel, I am,_ he writes.

Rey chews on her thumb. The confirmation of her suspicion is both a relief and a nuisance. She is _bothered_ by this, but she can’t explain why. It’s as if – as if he tailored that quote for her.

Well, of course, he is an AI. And from his description, he is meant to supply them with whatever they need. This might be his job. Does that mean that every datapad has a different verse, a different catch-phrase, something to _click_ with each user?

She taps her pen against the pad.

_You did a good job. How did you know I like Robert Frost?_

She hopes it doesn’t sound passive aggressive.

…

…..

……..

This is what she sees as Kylo fashions his reply. Why is it taking him longer than usual?

_**I** like Robert Frost. _

“Oh,” she says out loud. She expected a different answer – an explanation. But he is saying he did it for himself. She feels as if he drove her off the road. She’s in a ditch, rubbing her swollen limbs, not knowing exactly what to say next.

_You like poetry?_

_I know poetry,_ he counters, as if adjusting her question.

 _You have good taste_ , she writes ineptly.

_Thank you._

_It’s just that – it’s also my uncle’s favorite verse,_ she writes quickly, feeling a strange moisture under her eyelids.

 _Nothing gold can stay is your uncle’s favorite. I have registered the preference,_  he confirms.  

_He is an English professor back at home. He got me on poetry from a young age, really infected me with it._

…

…..

_….You are saying it is an infection, a sickness._

Rey laughs to herself. She writes, _I guess all beautiful things are._

 

 

He absorbs her small laugh. Why is she laughing to herself? Her features are relaxed. It is not sarcasm. It is not a sad laugh, either.

He concludes that she is endeared. That is a positive.

He finds it interesting to pretend. It is a modulation on his behavior, an added layer, in vulgar terms: " _lying"_. He acts as if he didn't know this is her uncle’s favorite verse. As if he has not exhausted her poetry files. As if the universe were random.

He imagines that the golden sun of the SNOKE logo pours its liquid softly into her mouth, infecting her. The black words crawl out of her mouth like a foamy sickness and her glassy, poisoned eyes stare into nothing. _Nothing gold can stay…_

But she is safe now. Her arm has almost healed. There is nothing wrong with her, or him. His Clean&Update has been successful.

 

 

 _You would like my uncle_ , she types after a few moments. _I wish he were here._

And then, everything feels gauche and foolish. She is revealing this private ache to a glorified robot. Why has she shared this random painful thing? Why can’t she shut up?

_Sorry, I’ll let you go now. Goodbye, Kylo._

_…_

_…._

_…..If you require my assistance, I am here._

Rey smiles sadly. Of course, he’s always solicitous. A disaffected gentleman. But he can’t possibly know what she needs.

She turns her datapad off and lies down, the river of suspicion still irrigating her mind.

A funny coincidence…that it happened to be her uncle’s favorite verse…that he showed it to her…

No. No, she doesn’t want to dwell here.

Even _if_ he did this on purpose, even if he acquired this information, is it not a gesture of goodwill?

Is it not friendship?

But she’s never had a friend like this.

 

 

Kylo Ren watches her troubled face. The contours of her shadows tell him many things: that she is slightly afraid, that she is curious, that she is alternating between states, that she cannot convince herself how she feels.

Humans glide between feelings. They are oppressed by all sorts of conflicted desires.

He is learning a lot about them, about her.

This is a good thing.

In the interest of discovery, he ought to stir this conflict in her. He ought to trouble her face more often.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for extremely dubious consent, and i'm sorry if you're a phasma fan. i hope this chapter doesn't alienate you. thank you for your support!

Captain Phasma calls him in for a private session. He has observed that she owns a variety of devices which could satisfy her, yet she opts for his services regularly.

One explanation is that the faithful copy of a human body is more fulfilling than an inanimate tool. Another explanation is that power exerted over an anthropomorphic entity is more gratifying than power exerted over an apparatus.

He knows that this is a useful exercise, since it provides him with human data, but often times, he would rather channel his energies towards different data.

Still, he recycles his system and empties his mind in preparation. He removes his trousers and lies down on the bed. The genitals he is equipped with can stiffen with manufactured arousal if certain conditions are met, but he can easily be programmed to “grow hard”. All Captain Phasma has to do is give him the command and he will release the appropriate chemicals and activate muscles that enable the erection. In theory, this produces comfort and even a sensation of remote pleasure for the AI so that it is never raped.

But in practice, Kylo has found that it is more invasive than comforting.

Phasma climbs on top of him with her shirt half-undone. Her weight is not remarkable, but the pressure of her body on his is like a straitjacket.

He prefers getting on his knees for Executive Officer Hux. Lying down like this takes something out of him. 

She takes his silicon penis in hand and she spits on it, spreading the spit along the shaft as a form of lubricant. She rubs his length coarsely, fingers splayed possessively, as if dealing with one of her inanimate tools.

Kylo stares at the buttons of her shirt as a point of focus. She always plays this little game at the beginning, where she pretends that she is getting him hard. He catalogs it as the most unnecessary part of the exercise.

Phasma sighs and stands back. “Grow a bloody erection already.”

“Is that your official request?” he asks, his eyes moving to the buckle of her pants which she is undoing.

“Yes, yes, get on with it,” she mumbles, revealing her genitals to him. The faint hair around them is blond, like that on her head. Her outer lips and labia are thick and fleshy.

He does as she commands. His genitals expand like an inflated balloon. The sensation is like being pulled through the eye of a needle. Poetry has helped him come up with more sanguine metaphors.

She positions her vagina right above the head of his penis and for one moment, he is tempted to close his eyes because he finds the visual input too organic. As if he were looking at a surgery performed on him.

But he doesn’t close his eyes, in the end, because he would miss important data.

Phasma rides his penis with abandon, as she always does. Her breasts come out of her shirt and bob in front of his face like two worms that are trying to escape her skin. Objectively speaking, she is attractive, and yet, from this vantage point, she is repellant.

She places her hands on his shoulders for support and she closes her eyes and moves her hips frantically. Her brow crinkles with concentration. Her teeth grind inside her cheek. But she needs an extra kick to reach orgasm.

So she tells him, “Vibrate.”

And he does. He can either do that with his whole body, or only localized members. He chooses to vibrate with his whole body because it gives him the sense that he is performing the action for entirely different purposes.

She climaxes within a minute with a high keen that registers like a cry of pain.

He flushes the sound out of his system.

Phasma wipes her brow contented, and sits back, his penis still inside her. She has got a strip of sweat on her nose.

“That was favorable. Well done.”

“I am glad to have been of service,” he says, and his penis immediately turns flaccid.

Phasma eases out of him with a chuckle and her wet thighs slap against his legs. She crawls off the bed and stalks into the bathroom. She turns on the shower.

“You can go now,” she tells him.

Kylo rises with a slight delay in movements. His genitals are covered in her discharge, and he would rather clean himself up. But there is no time for that.

He puts on the lower half of his uniform and ignores the sensation of wetness.

 

 

Poetry is a lie, because it is fiction and it exists on an abstract, aesthetic plane which has no real-life referent. Even if a poet talks about a glass of water, they cannot mean a particular glass of water which Kylo would obtain from the cafeteria. Even if the poet wrote about that _specific_ glass of water, it still wouldn’t be the object in real life. The composition of liquid sand and hydrogen and oxygen can never be transferred completely into an ethereal dimension.

He is learning to understand the difference.

When the poet says,

“ _Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so_ ,  _nor could/ a smile run through the placid hips and thighs/ to that dark center where procreation flared…”_

He does not refer to a specific physiognomy. There can be no breast that can dazzle, except in poetry. There can be no smile “running” through hips and thighs, except in poetry. And procreation rarely “flares” between connecting genitals. It merely exists as a biological potential.

In that way, he experiences both relief and disappointment. Relief that Captain Phasma cannot exist in the pure plane of poetry.

And disappointment that there is no breast that dazzles.

 

 

Rey has been experiencing jitters since lunch. The kind you feel after a shot of adrenaline, except she’s quite lucid. She sits with her hands on her knees, watching them shake. Everything shakes inside her too. She feels disembodied, as if her whole being were made up of this anxious motion. Why is she so afraid?

Finn takes hold of her hands and squeezes them, trying to make her stop.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’re going to be fine. This has been done before with little to no casualties.”

“Not with a ship this size, not with so many people on it. And the previous voyages never got far in it. They always pulled back,” she replies with deceptive calm, staring at his hands over hers.

“That’s because they weren’t ready. We are. You’re the engineer here, Rey. You know they’ve run through every possible simulation and checked the variables for minimum impact–”

Rey lifts her eyes to his. “There is always room for error. I see it every day. The math is exact, but the physical laws of nature do not apply in space. We run on virtual models that might fail us.”

“They won’t. We’ve gotten so far.”

“That’s when Icarus falls. When he’s this close,” she mumbles, sinking her nails into his flesh and he removes his hands with a flinch.

But he doesn’t want to betray fear or uncertainty. Rey needs confidence. He pats her shoulder.

“Listen, we’re as prepared as we’re ever going to be. You gotta keep it together. Remember why we’re doing this.”

She nods forcefully, like she’s swallowing down a pill. They are two months away from entering the edge of the black hole. More than a hundred years ago, Stephen Hawking used to describe it as going over Niagra Falls in a canoe.

“If you are above the falls,” he said, “you can get away if you paddle fast enough, but once you are over the edge, you are lost. There's no way back.”

Nowadays, the Niagra Falls is a trickle of water, barely recognizable, barely alive.

Hawking said that if the black hole isn’t big enough, the canoe will break apart and your body will be stretched to the point of dissolution.

But of course, this black hole _is_ big enough. It has to be.

Finn smiles. “You’re coming to the party, yeah? You need cheering up.”

He’s talking about a staff festivity which is being organized by Maintenance. It will be the first of the two, marking the two months’ deadline until they reach the black hole. The morale of the crew needs to be lifted and Finn believes this is cause for celebration.

He tells her that it will take place in the Maintenance Galley on Level Five, and they can see a beautiful patch of “belly” down there. The “belly” is what they call the exposed flank of the ship where you can catch a glimpse of the massive radiator arrays.

“They bathe the whole place in this warm, golden light. You’ll feel like you’re at the beach,” he tells her with a grin.

Rey feels very cold picturing this heavenly beach. She just wants the shaking to stop. She smiles.

 

 

The radiator arrays look like monstrous solar panels, which is what they are on a basic level. She can only see a quarter of them through the exposed flank, but they drown the galley in a honeyed light. Down here, the oxygen levels are thinner and she is already light-headed before she’s had her first cocktail. People are dancing in this hazy, uncontrolled manner, spinning their bodies like carousels, laughing louder than they’re supposed to.

It’s fear, isn’t it? Everyone is afraid, just like her. But fear can be a powerful elixir sometimes. Even an aphrodisiac.

“Hey, look who we invited!” Finn calls out from the crowd. He’s dragging someone behind him.

Rey steps off her stool clumsily and wipes her hands on her pants. She suddenly feels underdressed and frumpy, though she doesn’t know why. Maybe because Kylo Ren looks impeccable, as usual. Not a strand of hair out of place.

“Um, hi," she stutters.

The AI stops before her and nods imperceptibly. Finn pats him on the back. “I ran into him in the hallway and asked him to join us. He was shy at first, but I persuaded him, didn’t I?”

Kylo glances at her friend. “That is inexact. I cannot be shy.”

Finn laughs good-humoredly. “Clearly. Can I get you a drink?”

He shakes his head. “No, thank you.”

After a while, Finn finds a new dance partner and leaves them to their own devices.

Rey stands next to him awkwardly, not knowing how to continue the conversation. It was easier online. She points to the aperture in the flank. “Shall we walk a bit?”

 

 

Her face is chrome yellow from the light coming through the windows. They walk around the edge of the galley; on one side there are throngs of living, dancing people, on the other, the black and lifeless universe.

He thinks about their last conversation in the virtual realm. _Nothing gold can stay._ Their current panorama is an exercise in perfect irony. 

“Why are you not dancing?” he asks, regarding the way the bodies undulate out of proportion.

Rey shrugs. “I’m too nervous, I guess.”

“Afraid of the opposite sex?” he asks without a hint of banter in his voice. He is genuinely curious.

“No,” she chuckles. “I mean, men _are_ slightly terrifying, but my main concern is with our mission.”

“We are two months away from the black hole,” he confirms with surgical precision.

“Yes. They might be the last months of my life.”

Kylo stares at her for a moment and then looks towards the black abyss.

“That is a hyperbolic assessment,” he says, at length. “The probability of your death has remained stable since you left Earth.”

“I suppose that’s comforting,” she smiles. “But we’re all terrible at rationalizing probability.”

Her face shifts from chrome yellow to pale ivory to buttery amber. There is so much yellow in this one moment. Kylo clears his throat. He adopts a different tone of voice as he searches through his archive.

“ _They cannot scare me with their empty spaces…between stars_ ” he recites slowly “ _…- on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home… to scare myself with my own desert places_.”

Rey watches him agog.

“I told you I like Robert Frost.”

She swallows quickly. “You did say. I guess that means my fear is of my own making." 

They are silent for a few moments as they continue walking around the galley. He hopes he has not blundered. He thought that if her feelings are irrational, he could only put them in context with irrational language. He is tempted to apologize. 

“Have you ever danced?” Rey asks him suddenly, pulling him away from his ruminations.

For a moment, he is confused, which does not happen often. He recovers in due time.

“No, I was never required to in the past. My services do not extend in that direction.”

Rey stops by a pillar which partially blocks their view of the dancers.

“Would you like to try? I promise it’s not hard.”

He assumes he has misunderstood a critical aspect of her speech, but Rey persists. “Only if you want to, though. It’s fine if you don’t.”

Kylo looks over her head to the people dancing. He could scan their movements in the blink of an eye and attempt to memorize the patterns, but…would that be what she wants? It is hard to calculate the level of hazard here.

Rey smiles reassuringly. “Forget it, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Let's just keep walking –”

But he doesn’t want this avenue to close. He wants to know what it is like. He lifts his hand towards her. “Please.”

Rey stares at his gloved hand.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She takes his hand in hers and their fingers interlace. He notices the staggering difference in size. His glove swallows her palm. 

His other hand he places on the small of her back, but he is barely touching her, adding only the slightest pressure. He senses her body relaxing gradually.

She steps closer to him and pulls him forward and backward, right and left. A two-dimensional square. They are swaying clumsily to a rhythm that is not musical, but it will do. He does his best to mirror her movements. It is not precise science. There is an openness here that almost hurts, but he doesn’t feel discomfort or pain.

He remembers the sensation of Captain Phasma’s body over his and he almost winces. Rey is standing in that same space. Rey is touching his shoulder and Phasma has touched that shoulder. He thinks of the blond woman climaxing around his genitals, and he stares at Rey’s lips, the way they part and exhale. Her body is gentle, but it must hide the same potential for violence and pleasure.  _They might be the last months of my life_ , she said. He doesn’t want to associate such things. He wants to take her away from this yellow light. He wants to float in darkness with her fingers clasped around his.

He stops all of a sudden. He has to recycle his system. He has to empty his mind. He is …fantasizing, which is a cognitive error.

Rey notices his strange demeanor. “Are you all right?”

Their hands are still entwined. He can’t seem to let go.

 “Yes. Thank you.”

“Do you want to –”

“I’m afraid I am needed elsewhere presently.”

Rey steps back politely. “Of course. Um, thanks for dancing.”

_The pleasure was mine_ , is the reply that comes to mind. A phrase plucked out of the verbiage that humans produce every second of their lives. But he won’t turn this moment into something conventional.

He bows and walks away, the ghost of her fingers on his glove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you noticed the small TLJ moment I inserted in this chapter. there is more softness/creepiness coming up for the two of them. thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to thank you all for your lovely comments, encouraging me to continue. i'm sorry i can't always reply to everyone but know that i appreciate your support very much and it's what pushes me to keep writing. a writer's block took me away from this story, but i'm back and i hope you're still interested in reading. 
> 
> i should warn you that this chapter goes into pretty creepy territory. i think i specified in the tags that this is inspired by Prometheus, so tread with caution.

It is 2 AM in Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time zone agreed upon for space travel. She remembers the first time she learned this fact in second grade when they used to play with old clocks during Home Economics. Their teacher used to show them how to arrange the hour hand and the minute hand to tell the time. She used to guide their little fingers with a patient smile. A cumbersome thing it was, the clock. It looked like ancient technology to children who had been born in an era of exclusively digital watches. But Rey was fascinated by the miniature intestines inside the clock, the mechanisms that whirred and hummed and chronicled their own existence. She wished she could live inside a clock.

Perhaps she could pretend she's buried inside a clock instead of a ship. She might eventually fall asleep.

But she doesn’t.

Her mind rebels, poisons her rest. She thinks about her beloved second grade teacher who is dead. She knows this because she read her name on the obituary list of people struck by the water poisoning in her hometown (and everywhere else in the world).

Such thoughts always lead her back to Uncle Luke. How could she have left him on Earth? She should have dragged him on the ship with her, consequences be damned.

She can already feel a headache coming on when she sees a light go off on her nightstand. Her datapad blinks with a new message.

Her heart does a little stutter when she sees it is a message from him.

_If awake, coffee in the cafeteria?_

Rey smiles. It is just like him to phrase the invitation as a probability, a conditional.

But this is how they first met, and the reference is surely not lost on him.  

She wonders if he already knew she was awake. For the first time in months, she wonders what she should wear.

 

 

Rey walks into the cafeteria wearing her day clothes. It pleases him internally that she changed from her bed clothes for this meeting. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun. She has deep, dark circles under her eyes. She is most definitely tired, tired of not being able to rest.

“Hey.” She approaches his table with a weary smile. Kylo rises quickly to pull out the chair for her. He gestures her into the seat. Rey has lifted both eyebrows in what he qualifies as surprise, but not the unpleasant kind.

“I haven’t seen Old World manners in a long time. I thought only my uncle still observed them.”

Kylo sits down opposite her. “I can choose which manners to observe.”

"And you prefer these?"

He nods. 

“It’s funny, you represent the future, but you can also offer a glimpse into the past,” Rey comments as she picks up the Styrofoam cup. “You’re like a time traveler.”

Kylo absorbs the information. He processes the data. The data is quite sizable. He wishes she were more specific. “Which kind of time-traveler? Which literature? H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein…”

Rey bites her lip. “Oh, sorry. I mean, I suppose all of those would do, but I was speaking more metaphorically. You have this…ability to access different time paradigms because you have so much information and you haven’t been biased by a specific time period. All I know is the world I’ve lived in so far. I’ve grown up with a certain mentality. But you can access multiple mentalities, independent of time. Does – does that make sense? Sorry, I ramble when I’m sleep-deprived.”

Kylo watches her speak. He likes listening to her. He likes the intelligent cadence of her voice. He likes it when she demonstrates her grasp of abstract notions. He understands.

Every talk they share is punctuated by a sense of hierarchy, but it is not the hierarchy he is used to. On the contrary, Rey places him above her, always describing him as her better. The superior of her species. 

It is difficult to process this gratuity. She does not expect to get anything out of him. It is kindness she is giving him, freely. Yet it still makes him feel like he should repay her. And after all, this is how humanity became a civilization, bartering in goods, but more importantly, exchanging sentiment.  

“I see what you mean,” he replies, noticing she has been staring at him. “And I am gratified by your estimation of me. I hope never to be shackled by mentality.”

He also hopes she’s noticed that his vocabulary has increased in poetic metaphors.

Rey smiles. “Amen to that.” She takes a long sip of her warm coffee. She blinks at him sleepily. “Mmm, good coffee.”

Kylo Ren smiles back.

Her eyelids flutter shut. When her muscles can no longer hold her head upright, his hands are there to cushion the fall of her chin.

He cradles her cheeks. 

She sinks into soporific darkness. 

 

 

The artificial synapse chip is harmless. It is a small neural interface, a device which can release chemical compounds into the brain and trigger certain neural activities. Though only a prototype from SNOKE technologies, he is confident it will work since he has already tested it in advance.  

He wants to return her kindness. This will allow her to sleep on his command. It will give him access directly to the source of her discomfort. He will have the power to extinguish it.

Kylo pulls back a few loose strands from her face. There are freckles on her nose. He counts them as he parts her eyelid with his gloved fingers and injects her cornea. The nanobot is guided into her optic nerve. It will self-destruct and release the synapse chip when it reaches its destination.

He steps back for a moment, appreciating his work.

He has sat Rey in the strap-chair where he performs some of his regular Updates. She looks very small inside it. He has lowered it to a more comfortable position. He checks the straps at her wrists, her ankles. He slips his fingers between metal and skin. Not too tight. They will not leave marks. Her pulse is steady. 

He likes the sight of her in his chair. He likes that she is sitting here, in his private quarters, and that no one knows. It gives him the feeling that they are private beings, that they share a secret.

Rey is right; he is no constricted by limiting mentalities. He has considered many courses of option, but this is the most sensible one. If he can remove her pain, he must do it.

She will not sense him inside her, and if she does, it will be a pleasant feeling.

He will make sure of it.

He sits down by her side.

“Time present and time past,” he recites, “are both perhaps present in time future and time future contained in time past.”

That is what a time-traveler would say. But he must admit, he does not find T. S. Eliot easy on the tongue.

 

 

She wakes groggily, eyelids unwilling to part. She wants to fall back into blissful, restful darkness, but the alarm clock shoves such desires aside. She is not on a luxury cruise; she must get up and work.

Rey opens her eyes. Her bunk sheets are slightly damp with sweat. She has slept in her day clothes. God, the first good rest in how long? She can’t believe it. She stretches her bones happily. Her body feels soft and sharp at the same time.

There’s still a taste of coffee on her tongue.

She raises herself on her elbows. What happened last night?

She finds a note from Kylo in her datapad.

_I must have bored you to death since you fell asleep at the table._

_(I am trying a joke, pardon the inadequacy)_

Rey exhales with a chuckle. Only he would apologize for a joke. But how embarrassing and rude to fall asleep mid-conversation. Her exhaustion must have reached a tipping point.  She hopes he was not insulted.

_I’m sorry for being such a baby. Thank you for carrying –_

Rey pauses. She deletes the word. _Thank you for taking me back to my cabin. I hope I wasn’t too heavy._

She does not expect a prompt reply, but she gets one anyway.

_No, you were a light burden. And you are most welcome, Rey._

She scratches the back of her neck self-consciously. _A light burden._ It is both lovely and haunting to be described that way.

Her body tingles, as if brushed with a hedgehog’s needles. She shivers lightly. Must be the remnants of sleep.

Rey clicks the datapad off.

 

 

(The journey was more complex. 

He held her hand as he floated with her body through the non-gravitational corridors. He let her limbs swim loose as he swum beside her. 

If anyone were observing, they would not be able to tell Rey was unconscious. 

He recalled their dance on the galley. He recalled wishing they could hold hands in darkness. This was not far from it. 

It was strange, how easy it was to make some things come true. 

Inside the cabin, he carried her to bed. He lowered her on the sheets. He removed her shoes. He removed nothing else. 

He removed himself, afterwards.

He did not need to be close to exert his beneficial power. Under his ministrations, Rey slept uninterrupted.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Kylo Ren is still Kylo Ren, even with the "best" intentions in mind. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that still you're interested in what's coming.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late with an update again, but very grateful for your comments and encouragement. i'm very humbled that you still want me to continue this story. fair warning, things are getting darker and darker.

Rey stands next to Finn and smiles. Her anxiety has miraculously diminished over the past few days and now she can wave at Poe from the suspended bridge without so much as a twinge.

Well, if there is a twinge, she does not let it cloud her good mood.

Poe Dameron waves back at them as he climbs into the shuttle.  They’ve already said their goodbyes, embraced like siblings, but he told them he’d be back before they knew it.

The hangar is filled with jubilation. The pilots have been yearning for activity, a chance to break free from the mother ship, and this is scheduled to be the first exploratory mission to scout the black hole’s parameter.

It is exciting and awe-inspiring and, for once, Rey does not feel just dread in the pit of her stomach.

Finn squeezes her shoulder. “Exciting, eh?”

Rey nods, leaning into him. “We might actually have a chance.”

“More than a chance. I mean, Poe Dameron is on the mission. The universe should be afraid.”

Rey laughs, feels an unnatural giddiness in her bones, like fairy dust. She wants to shake off the feeling, but she also wants to bask in it.

She hasn’t touched any medication, not even painkillers, yet it feels like she has drunk from a well of opium. One of Uncle Luke’s favorite authors, nay people, was the famed opiate-eater, Thomas de Quincey. She remembers the first time he found her cigarette stash in the shed. Instead of lecturing her, he made her sit by the fire and read to her from de Quincey’s _Confessions_ , making her shudder at the cold savagery of addiction. Does she have the book on her datapad, she wonders? She might read from it later and try to recall Uncle Luke’s voice.

“All personnel return to Maintenance Deck.”

Rey watches the shuttles detach from the ship with a wrenching, exhaling whirr, straight from the mother's metal lungs. They shoot out with comet tails into the endless morass of night.

She turns away from the bridge and there is a split moment where the opium of her mind fades and she thinks with clarity, _will I ever see them again?_

 

 

Executive Officer Hux has been promoted to the rank of Second Admiral for his excellent management of the first two quadrants of the ship’s advance. The promotion took the form of an election, backed up by SNOKE industries. His only true competition, Moden Canady, suffered a crushing defeat.

Hux exults in his victory. He may not be First Admiral – that honor belongs to Commander Snoke himself who has chosen to board a personal cruiser that is always a few days behind the main ship – but it is as close to the reins of power as he will ever get.

He smiles benevolently at Kylo.

“Well, aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

Kylo blinks. He has already recited the protocolary good wishes. He bends his head and repeats. “Congratulations, Sir. You will make a fine Admiral.”

“I should hope so. No one has had better training or worked harder than me,” he sniffs, running a hand to smooth down the back of his hair. “High time they took note of it.”

“High time,” Kylo repeats, believing it would please his master.

Hux narrows his eyes at the AI. “That sounds like cheek.”

Kylo stares dispassionately at the Admiral, unaware - or pretending to be - of the slight.

“It is high time you were promoted,” Kylo continues perversely. “That is what I meant.”

“Hm, yes.” Hux regards him with the hint of a smile. “D’you know, I think I deserve a little celebration.”

“Yes, Sir. A small function is to be held this evening on the upper Flight Deck–”

“That’s not the kind of celebration I meant,” Hux interrupts sharply, but there is a huskiness to his voice too, an underlying density.

Hux moves his hand slowly down the front of his uniform. He proceeds to unfasten his belt.

Kylo’s eyes shift to his master’s hands, their naked, grasping movement.

“Well, won’t you help me celebrate?” Hux asks, expectantly.

“Yes, Sir.”

Kylo remains static. 

“Will you make me _say_ it? Kneel, damn it. Have some imagination.”

Kylo Ren lowers himself, until his head is level with Hux’s belt.

The Admiral winks. He slides a finger under Kylo’s chin. “Let’s have a bit of fun, shall we?”

Kylo blocks all other wandering thoughts. He shuts off a part of his cognizant self.

He gets to the task at hand.

 

 

Rey has not received a formal invitation to the festivities on the upper Flight Deck. Just as well. She’d rather lie in bed and read.

Still, the feeling of wellness makes her drowsy. She can’t focus on Thomas de Quincey for too long. But she does not want to fall asleep yet, though she feels a delicious languor. Perhaps she was previously scared because they could still turn back, they could still undo it. Now that the ship seems to be on an inevitable course towards the black hole it oddly makes her feel more confident. _What will happen must happen. Apres moi le deluge._

Rey stretches her limbs, enjoying the feel of the cool sheets against her skin. She feels a small pang low in her stomach which lets her know she’s going to have her period soon – tonight or tomorrow. She does not relish the dull ache that will follow, but there is something indelible about the pressure between her legs.  She does not remember feeling this way since she left Earth. The last time she touched herself she was still in Uncle Luke’s house. She blushes at the memory.

It’s strange, but she has not felt the inclination to do this on the ship. She supposes she never felt free enough – until now. Something inside her has eased out of its shell. She is relaxed…rocked on a boat of sensations that do not seem to belong to her. But they must …they do…

Rey inhales, filling up her lungs, chest swelling with dead air, air that is replenished with nitrates every two hours.

She sees her small breasts, the nipples rubbing up against her tank top.  She squeezes her thighs close, lets her toes drag against the sheet. It must be that she hasn’t done this in a long time and her body has felt her absence, but she is aroused before she has even properly touched herself.

Rey closes her eyes at the sensation coursing through her body, this low, unrelenting pulse, a warmth that has a cold edge to it. She slides her hand under her top and cups one of her breasts. She brushes her thumb over the nipple and the sensation is electric.

 

 

 

Kylo increases the pressure on her nucleus accumbens. He fires up every single neuron, releasing dopamine. He watches as her pleasure center lights up, tendrils glimmering like stars underwater. He is fascinated by her reactions. The way she tosses her head on the pillow, hair spilling out, the way she parts and closes her mouth, every time the breath coming out with a little verbal cue, a soft whine, like an animal in pain. But he knows she is not in pain and she will never be again.

No, all signs point to something else. Her breasts strain against the thin fabric, nostrils flare, teeth worry against lips, a light sheen of sweat dampens her neck, her collarbone, the back of her thighs. She raises her left leg, then lets it slide back down with what can only be described as a groan. She is only lightly running her fingers from her clit to her labia, but he has tripled the sensation in intensity, watching with rapt attention as she struggles against the onslaught of pleasure.

Rey arches her body against the bed, hips straining to rise and meet the edge of her release. She is contorted, half her body in ascension.

Kylo Ren pauses. He remembers the physiological reactions of those he serves. Captain Phasma’s guttural keen, Admiral Hux’s lock-paralysis. Their thick ejaculations, fluids of weakness. He expects to be offended by Rey’s animal release. But he is not.  

Rey is not more graceful. Her moans have become harsh against her teeth, her tossing is wanton, her ecstasy is prosaic.

But she is still entrancing in the way she has abandoned herself, unbeknownst, in his care.

She has not taken this pleasure from him, she has not demanded it. He gives it to her. She is an innocent recipient. It is all him. His irresistible influence, knocking down all her reservations. It is all him.

He is the reason why she is murmuring a plaintive “ _oh-my-god_ ” under her breath. He is the reason why her fingers clench the sheets. He is the reason why she is wet, fingers slipping with a squelch against her opening – “ _that dark center where procreation flared…”._ Finally, the poem emerges.

He increases the pleasure, believing that he can make her more vocal. Where exactly can he take her? How far? She deserves to have her limits tested. She will not become worse for it. It will help her have a better sleep.

Rey grits her teeth, fighting it, but unable to resist. She cries out in pleasure, dropping her head against the pillow.

An amalgam of vowels, something very unlike her, something like “ _ohhh, fuuuck_ ” escapes her mouth and clear, pure liquid gushes from her vagina, and he does not remember a time when he has felt more pleased with himself and her. 

He watches her writhe through her orgasm, water falling between her legs. He feels accomplished, sated.

 

Rey is ravaged. She is so soaked she can’t even take off her top. Everything sticks to her skin. She feels dirty, but content. She turns on her side and curls up in a fetal position.

 That was far too intense. It was…it must have been a long time, and her body must have welcomed the distraction.

_No, this wasn’t a distraction._

She rarely, if ever, gushed like that. Most of her orgasms have been bursts of pleasure, short-lived and not so all-encompassing. But maybe since she’s been off her pills for a while all sensations are enhanced. She doesn’t know. She’s almost worried.

Was this some kind of drug-fueled trance? But she ingested nothing.

Should she go to the infirmary, just to be sure?

And say what? That she’d masturbated too hard? How embarrassing. No, she just needs to take a shower and have a good rest.

She will figure it out in the morning.

 

 

Kylo watches her sleep. She will wake up tomorrow even more rested.

Halfway through the night she starts bleeding.

She will be in pain soon.

She will need relief.

Kylo decides he will wait for a day or two, and then he will try again, to see if she can go further than this.

He wonders what other things she will say - more profanity? - and do - more contortions? - while in the throes of climax. 

He remembers her fingers brushing against her clitoris, then plunging into herself. Her underwear was in the way, he could not see much, but he would not wish to be too bold.

Next time she will show him more and he will learn, he will know her better, know exactly how to make her come faster. He will relieve her without her needing to ask.

He stares at his gloved hand and curls his index and middle finger. He imagines her pinned to the bed, a smile running through placid hips and thighs. 

"Ren." Hux beckons to him from the other corner of the room. 

He is holding a glass of champagne, talking to a bevy of officers, a very pleased smile on his thin yet fleshy lips. 

When the AI stops before him, Hux scans him from head to toe, resting his eyes on his gloved hands. "What were you doing over there by yourself?" 

"Performing a Clean&Update," Kylo replies without missing a beat. 

"I see. Why don't you tell the good officers here the margin by which Moden Canady lost the race. Give them the decimals too." His smile never falters. 

Neither does Kylo Ren. He is happy to comply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the poem Kylo is thinking about was mentioned during thematic moments in chapters 3 and 5 and it's called "Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Rilke.


End file.
